Best Project Management Software 2024: 11 Tools Reviewed

Deadlines, goals, milestones, and responsibilities: Projects seem to grow more complicated as they scale up in size. Dedicated project management software can help you stay on top of all these moving pieces.

However, there are many solutions, making it just as important to find the right software for your team as to identify the need for it in the first place. To help in your selection, we thoroughly reviewed 11 of the leading platforms.

Just because monday.com* is named after most people's least favorite day of the week doesn't mean you should overlook it. The tool secured first place in our review series owing to its user-friendliness, impressive variety of features, and flexibility.

monday.com offers an excellent example of what modern project management platforms can do. Its interface is intuitive and divided into logically organized screens and areas. On top of that, it includes most views and field types.

monday.com is user-friendly and quickly mastered, even by those without technical know-how. Your team will start effectively using their Workspaces and managing assigned tasks in no time.

When it comes to project management, monday.com offers nearly every tool imaginable: Whether you want customizable boards, an assortment of views, custom field types, or advanced task planning features, monday.com's got it.

On top of that are the more than 200 integrations that you can add to monday.com and useful automations, including pre-defined templates that help simplify routine tasks.

monday.com is particularly well-suited for small to medium-sized teams that need an intuitive project management solution. Users get a visually appealing hub that provides a clear overview of tasks, deadlines, participants, and dependencies.

Unfortunately, many basic features (automations, integrations, time tracking, and form columns) and views (Calendar, Timeline, or Gantt) are only part of the most expensive subscriptions. This makes monday.com pricier than other solutions.

In addition, unlike most other platforms, monday.com doesn't have many built-in communication features and lacks chat and messaging capabilities.

Finally, monday.com might not be the best option for your team: The platform emphasizes data over processes (which tools like Asana do). This makes it less than ideal for visualizing certain workflows.

ClickUp might not look as nice as monday.com, however, it comes loaded with useful features and elements for visualizing nearly any project workflow. This makes ClickUp one of our review series' most flexible project management tools.

ClickUp is whatever you make of it. Nearly every feature, setting, and interface can be customized to meet your and your project's needs allowing it to be tailored to fit any project.

Its clear hierarchy makes it easy to arrange projects into different team Spaces, where rules, tasks, collaborators, and user privileges can be freely adjusted. Tasks and projects can be visualized in a variety of ways as well.

Unlike monday.com, ClickUp is suitable for real-time communication: Alongside assigning tasks and commenting on them, you can chat with your teammates or jointly edit a shared document.

ClickUp is ideal for large and small teams that need a logically structured and flexible project management solution with plenty of features, views, and customization options.

At the same time, its steep learning curve and complexity make ClickUp less appealing to those in the market for a straightforward solution or who don't need to personalize their tasks and projects.

It takes time to get comfortable with using ClickUp. When starting, its fully loaded interface and array of settings can be challenging, especially for those less technically versed.

However, the platform's performance is even more annoying than its complexity: Its interface should be streamlined. We experienced some lag during testing and have good reason to believe it wasn't a one-off.

Asana is more like monday.com than ClickUp: The platform isn't as versatile, but still easy to use, especially for beginners. Its user interface, which we liked even more than monday.com's, is among the best on the market.

Work flows when using Asana: Its streamlined and well-thought-out interface gives team-based projects an extra push since managers can arrange complex workflows with subtasks and dependencies.

Asana also impresses in features, with the platform offering the most important of these, along with views and advanced tools like automations, reports, forms, and extensive integrations.

Asana is a good choice for teams that need a process-driven project management platform capable of visualizing workflows from start to finish.

Complex tasks can be broken down into subtasks and assigned dependencies in a highly user-friendly manner. This makes Asana a solid option for small teams with straightforward projects and larger organizations.

Communication isn't Asana's strong suit with the platform limiting itself to the bare necessities: There aren't chats or advanced collaboration features. In addition, custom fields are limited which makes tasks less flexible than on other platforms.

Most project management platforms are generalists and rarely limit themselves to a particular branch or type of project. Doing so would significantly reduce the size of their target audience.

While highly versatile, Teamwork.com does cater to a specific market segment: Client-centric organizations. Alongside its classic project management features, the platform lends a helping hand to those working with customers.

Teamwork.com offers an impressive range of features tailored to the needs of agencies and teams working on client projects.

All standard features are included: From a solid range of project views, custom fields, and advanced settings for task scheduling. On top of that, users get highly developed collaboration tools, such as PMs, chats, and shared document editing.

And then there are the extras that help simplify project work. These include integrated budgeting and invoicing features for teams to efficiently manage, record, and bill time spent on projects.

Teamwork.com is best suited for client-focused teams and agencies. Since the platform offers project management, time tracking, communication, budgeting, and billing tools, it's a good choice for anyone interested in an all-in-one solution.

By the same token, as the platform's name suggests, it's intended for teams and collaboration. This, along with the license minimums across all subscriptions makes it less suitable for individuals and freelancers.

New users will need some time to familiarize themselves with Teamwork.com and the first steps aren't as intuitive as with Asana or monday.com.

In some ways, the platform is also less flexible: It lacks a few views (Gallery, Cards, etc.), and the selection of custom field types is limited.

Rounding out the negatives, the all-in-one approach is only beneficial if you use every feature: If you have different time tracking or billing tools, Teamwork.com might seem overloaded.

Notion takes a different approach than the other platforms in our Top 5. It isn't a full-fledged project management tool but a Wiki (or knowledge database) that can be used to organize and manage projects and tasks.

This means that successful outcomes and deliverables are not as central in Notion as other solutions. At the same time, once you've mastered Notion, its visualization and project management capabilities are nearly limitless.

With its WIki-like appearance, structuring into Teamspaces, and highly customizable pages and blocks, Notion offers a flexible basis for many different kinds of workflows and areas of application.

One unique aspect of the platform is its comprehensive Wiki features: With Notion, it's possible to create extensive knowledge databases for teams or businesses and edit them in real-time.

Notion is a good choice for teams that need lots of documentation and/or an internal Wiki. Since you'll use this Wiki structure to manage projects and tasks, Notion is suitable for any project.

Those in the market for a project management tool and interested in fixed workflows and processes that can be visualized might not be satisfied with Notion.

In addition, some features are missing, such as time tracking, chats, and comprehensive reporting tools.

Did none of our Top 5 catch your attention? No problem - The above solutions are just a small selection of all available project management tools. Here are a few alternatives that are also worth considering:

Wrike is comparable to monday.com and Asana. Even though it's targeted towards beginners, the platform offers flexible task management capabilities. It does suffer from a lack of both collaboration features and custom field types though.

Airtable is a powerful database, spreadsheet, and project management hybrid. Also known as "Excel on steroids", it can be a game changer for data-focused projects. At the same time, it's less process-driven and relatively complex.

Trello takes a more minimalistic approach: The platform is based on the Kanban method and is ideal for small and medium-sized teams. Even though it does this well, it's less versatile and customizable than other solutions.

Smartsheet can be most easily compared to Airtable: The table-based platform is perfect for data-intensive projects, so long as you know how to visualize them.

Since it isn't a project management platform, users need an understanding of spreadsheet formulas and calculations to maximize its potential.

Basecamp, like Trello, knowingly limits its features: You'll only get certain views, and there are no custom fields.

This focus on the essentials and its integrated collaboration features make Basecamp very easy to use and ideal for team communication. Larger or more complex projects will quickly realize the platform's limits, however.

Like Basecamp and Trello, MeisterTask limits itself to certain basic, Kanban-esque project planning features. If you'd like to use a Kanban board, MeisterTask offers a user-friendly option, but any other approach will be a challenge.

Below, we've prepared a full ranking of all 11 platforms that we reviewed:

Choosing the right project management solution for yourself and your team should be weighed carefully. After all, you're investing in a piece of business software that will see daily use and should increase your efficiency and profits.

Below, we'll let you know which aspects to pay attention to when selecting project management software and what we checked for during our review series.

All software has a learning curve, even project management tools. However, there is a fine line between "complex" and "confusing" - you can get used to complexity and understand it over time.

Good project management software should package detailed features in as intuitive and straightforward a fashion as possible to make them accessible to any user.

Setup should be as easy as possible. Free versions are available for most project management software we reviewed and users won't need to input payment data. Once you register an account, you can try out the platform's features.

Some platforms take things a step further and offer newcomers a brief tutorial introducing them to the software's basic features. Most of the time, you'll be able to create your first project and tasks during this, as you can see below with Asana:

After creating your account, you'll land in the platform's management hub or dashboard.

Sometimes, there's a short introductory checklist or tutorial that highlights the tool's main features, tools, and interface. Ideally, these will be explained interactively through the guided creation of a sample project or task.

In Basecamp, you'll create your first project in the beginner tutorial and also receive explanations of the platform's features and capabilities.

A good project management tool's interface should be as straightforward as possible. It will have a well-organized, logically structured, and prominent menu that gives you quick access to any feature or area.

Most interfaces are divided into three (or four) main areas as can be seen below. Wrike's main menu is off to the left, the center of the screen serves as the main working area for your project, and to the right, a detailed menu opens with information about the project or task you're examining:

There are alternatives, however. What matters is that the usage concept is intuitive and logical.

On the topic of logic: The platform's hierarchy and structure should also be clear and easily internalized.

You should be able to organize tasks into projects and group different projects. The ability to further arrange tasks into subtasks and intermediate steps is also something to look for.

One of the key advantages project management platforms offer is the ability to visualize projects and data from different perspectives and according to various methods.

With a Table view, you'll see all task details in a window; the Kanban view arranges project progress into different phases, and the Timeline view shows how projects move forward over time.

Project management platforms should offer as many views as possible while allowing users to select which they want to use for their projects.

We've prepared a comparison table below showing which views we looked for along with the platforms that offer them:

Most project management solutions offer smartphone apps for viewing and working on projects from anywhere with an Internet connection.

We don't expect these apps to replace their desktop counterparts: Project management often requires lots of minute adjustments and most users will prefer having a big-picture view in the web interface.

At the same time, we expect mobile apps to provide ready access to projects so that upcoming tasks can be quickly checked, or small changes can be made.

Simplicity and limiting the number of features can pay off here. MeisterTask's app, for example, achieves this balance with the desktop version's Kanban columns neatly exported to its smartphone app:

In summary, a user-friendly project management platform should make it easy for beginners to get started, offer a logically organized interface with clear hierarchies and areas, and provide plenty of views for visualizing data.

Projects and tasks are the building blocks of project management platforms.

You'll likely spend most of your time working with tasks since each represents a specific step within a project. Task creation, editing, and management should be as easy and flexible as possible.

Adding a new task should only require a few clicks. Most of the time, this is possible on the project screen: Click in the area where tasks are arranged and there should be an option to add a new record or entry.

A quick action menu is also useful since this allows you to create a new task anywhere in the dashboard.

The newly-created task can now be edited and provided with any information you'd like to add. This can also be done in several ways: In platforms with a Table view, you can edit fields directly in the relevant column.

Alternatively, you can click on a task and open its detailed view. Typically, all available fields are listed. These usually include:

These fields should be well-arranged and easy to edit, like in Trello below:

Tasks come in different shapes and sizes. Aspects that might be relevant or essential on one occasion will be unimportant to others. When the default options aren't enough, you'll want to be able to add custom fields to your tasks.

Only those platforms that allow tasks to be modified with custom fields are truly flexible. Here, it's important to note the number and kind of field types that are offered. For both, the more, the better.

In this area, the differences between platforms from our sample are significant: While you can add custom fields to tasks in programs like Airtable or monday.com, others offer limited options (MeisterTask and Trello), or none at all (Basecamp).

The table below shows how many and which field types each platform we reviewed offers:

Most projects consist of multiple tasks. Often, these impact one another or must be completed in a certain sequence. Good project management solutions will have additional tools for contextualizing and arranging tasks within projects.

We looked specifically for the following features:

Nearly all project management solutions we reviewed offer subtasks and dependencies. Milestones are found among roughly half, while only two offer goals (Asana and ClickUp).

The table below shows the advanced task features each platform provides:

Creating and managing tasks should be as uncomplicated as possible. Users must be able to comprehensively customize tasks and contextualize them with subtasks, dependencies, and milestones.

Most project management platforms, even those that cater to individuals and freelancers, facilitate teamwork. However, the extent of this varies, making it necessary to see how seamless online communication is and which features are available.

Solid user management is the key to online collaboration. With project management platforms, it should be simple to invite team members via email or link and assign them a particular role.

For large organizations, granular access rights are important, since not every employee should have access to all areas.

Another feature to look for is the ability to assign special user roles to external visitors, such as freelancers or customers. These will only give them access to specific project areas and information.

Most project management solutions rely on asynchronous collaboration: Everyone works at their pace on their assignments and contributes to the project.

Tasks can be assigned to specific team members, which helps everyone to understand who is responsible for what. Participants will be notified whenever a task is created, assigned, completed, or its status changes.

Basic communication occurs in the form of comments in the project area. Here, colleagues can tag one another and write short messages.

Every project management platform should offer these basic features. It's important to effectively assign projects, receive notifications, and easily check comments.

Many platforms, even some of those that scored highest in our review series, don't offer much beyond the basics. There's nothing wrong with this since many organizations use other solutions for communication.

Other providers offer enhanced real-time collaboration tools and support direct communication through chats, message boards, direct messages, and even video meetings. Teamwork and Basecamp are among the leaders in this area.

Some platforms, like ClickUp or Asana, support shared document editing, with similar functionality to Google Docs.

Wiki features, which are Notion's calling card, might also be useful for your organization: With these, you can create documentation for your team or agency, store it centrally, and integrate it into your project management approach.

In the table below, we've prepared a table that compares collaboration features among all providers from our sample:

Good project management software should offer comprehensive user management with different access rights and privileges. At the same time, it will make asynchronous collaboration as streamlined as possible.

We awarded good scores only to programs that offered something beyond the basics while providing useful collaboration features that facilitated real-time communication.

Most project management platforms offer additional tools and capabilities in addition to the task and team features mentioned above. Some of the most important include:

Below, we've prepared a comparison table that shows which features are offered by the project management platforms from our sample:

There is no "perfect" blend of features: Everyone's needs are different, and capabilities that might be must-haves for one organization are useless to the next. On top of that, dedicated solutions are often preferred over extras.

With that in mind, choose the program that best matches your needs and offers the most integrations for software that you already use, know, and are familiar with.

For support, we focus on two aspects: The quality of static help content and how good direct support channels are.

Every project management platform has a learning curve. When starting, you'll probably want to check where a particular feature is or how a certain setting works. The provider's support center should offer quick and informative answers.

We like to see:

You probably won't be able to find a solution for every problem you encounter. When you hit a roadblock, you'll want to contact your provider's support team, which can hopefully quickly and accurately answer your question.

Most providers from our sample limit regular subscribers to email and ticket-based assistance, which is usually good enough for most questions. Some services, like ClickUp, have a live chat. Hotline support is rare.

Enterprise users get more personalized support options.

Good project management providers should offer an assortment of high-quality static support content while making staffers available to answer more difficult questions across multiple channels.

All providers from our sample offer various paid subscriptions. These differ in the features they include, the number of views, and other aspects such as storage space or the number of allowed projects.

Thankfully, nearly all providers we reviewed offer free versions of their software. Some, like Airtable or ClickUp, include all essential features and might be good enough for individuals or freelancers.

If you'd prefer a paid subscription, you'll need to pay a license fee per user, per month (you won't be charged for external users with limited privileges). Some services have license minimums.

How much you pay depends on the subscription you choose and how many team members need licenses. Since rates and features vary from provider to provider, subscription packages cannot be accurately compared.

Use our price calculator at the beginning of this article to filter available subscriptions from our sample and find the one that best matches your needs.

The table below shows how much a subscription that includes 10 users and unlimited projects costs from all 11 of the services we reviewed:

Project management tools don't guarantee project success, but they do make it more likely. They serve as hubs for your projects and tasks while assisting managers in allocating resources, and team members in planning their work.

When everything goes according to plan, a solid project management tool will provide an overview, help set priorities, and identify problems early on. However, they don't guarantee that everything will go smoothly.

To benefit from them, you'll need to pick the right platform. We strongly recommend involving your team in your choice, since they'll use it daily.

Our reviews, price calculators, and comparison articles can help you find the project management platform that best matches your needs.